‘Every hospital corridor I saw had people in beds’

A woman who was told to go to A&E during a critical incident at Nottingham’s hospitals said she saw people “in beds in every corridor” she came across.

Lucy Buckle, 38, said the scenes inside the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) on Tuesday were “frightening” and described the atmosphere as “very loud and very chaotic”.

Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) said the situation was improving but their hospitals were “still full”.

Speaking to the BBC, Buckle praised the staff and said: “They were amazing… everybody was so professional and they really did put me at ease.”

The trust said on Tuesday the emergency department at the QMC was designed to treat 350 patients a day, but the site was “regularly” seeing more than 500 patients.

Buckle suffered a dog bite and rang the NHS 111 service. She was then advised to go to A&E to get a tetanus jab and for someone to assess the wound.

She said she had heard about the critical incident at the hospital before being told to go there.

The 38-year-old added she was seen relatively quickly as she turned up bleeding.

“I was quite resistant to going because I knew how busy it was going to be but they said that was my best course of action,” she said.

“I was told that I had to go and not risk losing my finger, so I was apprehensive.”

“It was so busy in [A&E], very loud, very chaotic… as I was moved around the hospital to different departments, every corridor had people in beds and I’d say the majority of those were the elderly.

“It was really quite upsetting at times when I was waiting for an X-ray, I could hear people calling out in the corridor.

“You could see the nurses and the staff running around trying to get to everybody as quickly as possible, machines beeping from everywhere.

“I felt guilty for being there, I didn’t want to take up a space unless I absolutely had to but it was quite scary to think if I was in there for a heart attack or something really serious,” she said.

But Buckle praised staff who were on shift and said they dealt with the situation with a smile on their face despite coming into contact with “aggressive people”.

“They were amazing… everybody was so professional and they really did put me at ease.

“I couldn’t work in that environment and we all need to be very grateful to them for keeping going everyday,” she said.

A spokesperson for NUH said: “While our position is improving, we are still not where we need to be for our patients or staff and our hospitals are still full.

“We continue to take all actions we can, including opening more space, but you can help too by only attending A&E in an emergency.”

The trust also urged people to “collect patients promptly” when they are ready to be sent home.